


impediments

by novembersmith



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Fingerfucking, Intoxication, M/M, Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Canon, Rimming, THE HONEYMOON, Yuleporn, oblivious idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 23:36:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8943928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembersmith/pseuds/novembersmith
Summary: In which the instution of marriage is discussed, and the impediments therein are removed. ...mostly via the application of liberal amounts of alcohol, and maybe a smidgeon of actual use of words.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [movies_michelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/movies_michelle/gifts).



> ETA: Title from William Shakespeare, beta from many best folks who I will thank profusely after reveals, and story inspired by THESE TWO IDIOTS I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MARRIED THEY ARE. Sorry I forgot to create an actual summary until now! Happy Yuletide, movies_michelle!

“I suppose,” Tharkay drawled, swirling the last of his wine and staring into the depths, “You will not marry your admiral? I’m told she’s not the sort for the institution.”

“She is not,” Laurence said meditatively. They were in Tharkay’s rooms – the two of them performed the majority of the estate’s household chores, and after finally returning after bearing witness to a lengthy season of parliamentary debate, neither had the willpower or energy to light more than one fireplace.

“Well, we’ve had worse fare, and in worse company,” Laurence had said, bringing in the laden tray of wine, cured meat, and cheese scavenged from the kitchens. In shirtsleeves, gold hair gleaming in the light of the fire Tharkay had just laid in, he was smiling and rosy. Tharkay felt a familiar pang of agony, and set it aside to smile.

“A toast to the dining locations, and dinner companions, we’d like to forget,” Tharkay had said, and managed not to say that he considered any meal in any location superlative enough, be it ice crevasse or Napoleonic table, so long as it were in Will's company. Instead, he uncorked the bottle with his teeth and took a long, deep, swallow before pouring two decorous glasses, rather than behaving the barbarian any further.

With the balm of alcohol, unfortunately, came the side effects – Tharkay already regretted bringing up Jane. Jane, with whom Laurence had recently spent many nights with in London in seclusion. Tharkay had nothing against the woman – were he not already thoroughly besotted with another, he rather thought her charms would have appealed to him greatly.

As it was, he wouldn’t have minded never hearing her name again between these walls. And yet, he’d been the one to bring it up. A strategic error, on a night when he could plausibly keep Laurence in his company, in his _room_ , and for a moment pretend he had everything he wanted right here.

“I did ask her, you know,” Laurence was saying, and Tharkay wondered how many had ever seen him like this, loose-limbed and pink-cheeked, in his stocking feet. There was a careful darn at the tip of one toe that was set to unman Tharkay entirely. He was embarrassed for himself, that a bit of makeshift haberdashery could move him to such lengths, but had mostly resigned himself to it. “I mean, I asked Jane, to marry me. She thought it amusing.”

“I had suspected,” Tharkay confessed, and when he got to his feet the room was pleasantly warm, slightly blurred, like watercolor. Laurence watched him, head tilted and propped upon his hand, hair falling into his eyes. “Another bottle?” He didn’t wait for an answer before returning to the cold dark of the hallway – it braced him, a bit, returned him to wakefulness.

Upon his return, Laurence seemed almost to have melted, slid down low in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. His sleeves were rolled up, his shirt untucked, and there was a pale sliver of skin showing at his waist.

“I’ll drink to that,” Tharkay murmured, and tipped a mouthful of port into his mouth before moving forward to pour Laurence a glass. Laurence instead languidly, with surprising grace, caught Tharkay’s wrist, and then took the bottle. He drank from it and it was – terrible. His mouth where Tharkay’s had been, his lips wet on the glass rim. _Terrible_.

“What a pair of layabouts we are,” Laurence said lazily, stretching, and passed the bottle back. Something about Laurence, all undressed and eschewing his goblet, wrought more destruction upon Tharkay’s barricades than he’d prepared for. He’d thought he’d made all possible preparations, when making his invitation to Laurence and Temeraire. He’d wagered this the greatest happiness he could possibly find, if he could coax them to accept it, and damn the double-edge of both having and never having his greatest wish granted all in one.

“We have earned our lack of manners. Besides, it behooves us to uphold the reputation of a bachelor house,” Tharkay agreed, looking down on Laurence with impossible fondness, hoping it did not show on his face. Then something shocked unlocked in his spine and chest when he felt fingers against at his wrist, Laurence tugging him down onto the settee beside him. He was dangerously close, warm and loose-limbed; Tharkay breathed only through very careful effort.

“In fact, I asked Jane long ago,” Laurence confided lowly, and Tharkay blinked at this non sequitur. “But how,” Laurence continued, very seriously, in the careful way of those slightly too far into their cups, “is Ms. Maden? Do you find her well?”

Tharkay blinked again; he supposed the topic a natural one, but he was still unsettled. “As I believe has been previously established, she remains married, and not to me. I suppose she does as well as anyone, with the war over.” He was not sure what to follow this conversation with, and fumbled for something blindly. Will was very warm against his side; he could not think. “How... is your Edith?” he guessed, as apparently they were on the charming topic of failed proposals.

“Edith? Oh. Edith. Yes, she’s well, I believe. I should write her back – she’s sent Temeraire a letter. I gather she’s becoming more interested in politics.” His head tipped back on the couch and his eyes closed as he winced. “But I’d rather not think on that now. I thought we’d never escape this session.”

It had only been under extreme duress that the debates had been temporarily halted, after weeks of battling over property rights and taxation, and Temeraire could be coaxed to fly them back to the estate. Tharkay would not be surprised to learn the dragon had immediately turned tail and flown back to London to continue calculating interest rates with the other coverts.

“But does Ms. Maden’s loss still—I mean, that is to say, do you still hope to marry?”

“I beg your pardon?” Tharkay said, startled out of his contemplation of draconic pecuniary skills, spilling a good glass’s worth of port all over the both of them. He swore absently, dabbing at Will’s arm with a handerchief before giving it up as a bad job. “I must admit, Will, I haven’t thought of Sara, or indeed, of marriage at all, in…” He cannot truly recall. “Why do you ask?”

“Your estate begs for a woman’s touch, don’t you think?” Laurence said, gesturing around them at the dustcloth-covered furniture, then took the sticky bottle back for a long swallow. Tharkay watched his throat move, the shadows of the fire licking across his skin. Damn the man. Tharkay regretted the earlier wine, regretted the later port, regretted bringing up this damned topic of matrimony at all.

“I find a man’s touch more than acceptable at present,” Tharkay said, thoughtlessly, undertaking to extricate the bottle from Laurence’s grasp.

“Granby and Little consider themselves married,” Laurence said, very intently, not releasing the bottle, and Tharkay reflected again how very glad he was that Granby had been taken off the market by Little, and stopped mooning after Laurence – surely one hopelessly besotted man was enough for anyone to drag unknowingly around behind them. “I believe they are as close as can be, in their circumstances. More so than many men and women. More than Jane and I ever managed. They are – besotted. It’s charming - I didn’t think, at first, beyond the appearances of it, but they are well-matched. What do you think?”

“I think… we must drink to their health,” Tharkay said thickly, and did immediately, having finally won the battle for the bottle. He swallowed the remainder of the port, feeling a little bitter, a little fond, and a lot fuzzy, and then Laurence’s hand was on his cheek and he primarily felt as though he’d been struck upside the head by an iron bar. It was entirely within the realm of possibility - more so than Laurence’s leaning in, touching him with intent, ever could be.

He either was too drunk for this, or not nearly drunk enough.

“I apologize, Tenzing,” Will was saying, with his endearing deliberation and careful forthrightness, albeit blurred somewhat by wine. “I have been musing over this too long without saying anything, and Jane set me straight. She is right - it is wrong to let you labor under a misconception of my feelings for you. I understand fully if you take offense. I am more than willing to sleep with Temeraire for the remainder of our stay, and to find lodgings elsewhere.”

“Offense. Feelings?” Tharkay parroted intelligently, and then nearly strained something deeply important in his chest when Laurence’s thumb brushed over his cheekbone. “ _What_?”

“I am surprised you did not suss me out earlier,” Laurence was saying, seemingly mesmerized by his own hand on Tharkay’s skin, staring at it dreamily. “I am no great shakes at dissembling. Were I to marry, I would not—there is no one on this Earth whose company I more greatly esteem, Tenzing.” He blinked, then cocked his head, smiling a little, wrinkling his nose – appalling. Tharkay could not breathe. “Other than Temeraire, but one cannot marry a dragon. Legally, as of yet, though lord knows what Perscitia and the others—”

“Will!” Tharkay broke in, barely able to hear himself through the rushing in his ears, and caught Laurence’s hand before it could continue stroking his face and thereby cause Tharkay’s early death by coronary. Laurence startled and then went from a dreamy pink to a red. “I apologize for interrupting, but what _are_ you saying?”

Laurence breathed out, squared his shoulders, then lifted their joined hands to kiss Tharkay’s. His lips were chapped, and soft, and hot like a brand on the suddenly impossibly sensitive skin of Tharkay’s scarred knuckles.

“I cannot think of any marriage to match what I have shared with you,” he said, meeting Tharkay’s gaze. The fire was grown low, but not so low that Tharkay could not see the steadiness of his eyes, the brightness. His hand was damp and hot in Tharkay’s. “I understand if this is unwelcome.”

“Dear god,” Tharkay said faintly, and then realized he was just sitting there, like an idiot, and shoved Laurence onto his back upon the settee. He heard a crash as the bottle fell, as the platter tumbled and debris from their dinner scattered. “Will, you absolute ass.”

“Not exactly the response I’d hoped,” Laurence rasped, eyes large and obnoxiously blue, even in the dim light. He had let Tharkay overset him; he had let himself be straddled, even as he braced for a blow, unsure as to Tharkay’s response - _how_ could he be unsure? They were both idiots. Tharkay could barely hear for the heat of the blood rushing through his ears; he felt dizzy, shocky as though he was fevered again.

“Will, am I to understand I am allowed to debauch you?” Tharkay asked intently, dizzily, certain at any moment he was going to wake up and wanting to at least secure a kiss before he did.

“Ah,” Laurence breathed, face lighting up, creasing into a smile – for years now, whenever Laurence had smiled, Tharkay had wondered what it would be like to kiss him and forbid himself to think of it, let alone to try. To kiss him now was instinctive and anathema all at once.

Laurence’s mouth, rich with port and curved with laughter, felt impossibly good - the stuff of dreams. Dimly Tharkay thought that he should stop Will here, that they should discuss this as gentlemen and as friends in the sober light of morning. Then Laurence stopped laughing and got a hand in Tharkay’s hair. His gaze sharpened, and his smile heated, to the point that Tharkay no longer worried about either Will’s intoxication or his own. The alcohol’s dampening effect was effectively non-existent, especially when Will’s leg entwined with his and his body rocked, and his kiss deepened until both were gasping.

“I admit I am inexperienced in the particulars of relations between men,” Laurence said, a hand stealing up the back of Tharkay’s shirt, stroking through the sweat at the base of the spine. “But I believe the basics of the act are consistent.”  

“Oh, pray, enlighten me as to the basics,” Tharkay murmured richly, and nudged at Laurence’s chin with his mouth until his head tipped back, and then had a moment of disbelief, only able to stare at the gold expanse of throat bared to him, until Will swallowed. Then it was easy, easier than thought, to taste the pulse of Will’s heart, to devour his skin until he heard Will panting.

“I don’t believe you need enlightening,” Will gasped. “Tenzing.”

“It _does_ seems appropriate to educate you in the specifics,” Tharkay said, daring to press Laurence’s hands above his head, pinning him against the couch. Laurence let him, pliant and waiting for instruction, and Tharkay took a moment to thank the influence of alcohol, likely all that kept him from spending embarrassingly quick, at that very moment. “If it’s meant to be a marriage, after all. One of us should be virginal, tonight.”

“Virginal,” Laurence spluttered, indignant, and for a moment Tharkay thought he might break his grip - there was a wicked glint in his eye, and Tharkay could easily see their positions reversed. Indeed, his mouth went dry at the thought. But then he subsided, licking his lips. “I had not thought you the sort to enjoy a virgin bride, Tenzing.”

“Ordinarily, no, the status does not signify much importance to me,” Tharkay allowed, and settled himself astride Laurence’s hips, staring down in delighted disbelief at the picture of Will, drawn from his very dreams - hot-eyed and half-dressed, mouth parted. Tharkay slid his shirt off one shoulder, then another, baring a scarred chest and pink nipples dusted with gold hair. When one nipple was thumbed roughly, Laurence arched up, eyes widening, and Tharkay pressed harder with his nail. “Nor does the claiming of land or planting of flags. However, I find myself very interested in being the first to tread this particular territory with you.”

He also found himself alarmingly interested at the idea of Laurence in white garters and stockings, but he shelved that thought; what he had in front of him was more than enough to occupy his attention. Laurence splayed waiting before him was, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, devastating. From the point that he knew the man, after having spent so long seeing that brow creased with sorrow, to see simple forthright happiness on his face was almost the greatest blow to Tharkay's aplomb yet. Laurence, letting himself be vulnerable, giving himself up like this so willingly - Tharkay pressed a hand to his own trousers and breathed deeply. He thought maybe he could reach completion just from this. How embarrassing.

“I - yes, I find I can see the appeal,” Laurence said. “Tenzing, do you plan only to look?”

“Patience,” Tenzing replied absently, considering the angle of approach - the settee was quite narrow, but the bed seemed too far a journey at present. “If I can wait years for the fruition of a want, you can wait a few moments for me to drink in my fill.”

“Years,” Laurence repeated slowly, and Tharkay winced, and thought perhaps he had after all stop staring and start putting his mouth to better use, rather than embarrass himself further. “Tharkay - I must apologize for any pain I’ve caused you.”

Because naturally Will could take the blame upon himself for even this, when it was incredible that he was here at all.

“You are the most impossible man I have ever met,” Tharkay informs him, exasperation and fondness mixed, and met Laurence’s protest with a hand over his mouth, reveling in Laurence’s decision to allow it. “A moment, please.” Laurence pressed a kiss to his palm and then laid back, evidently trusting, impatient but content. Tharkay considered just bringing himself off, quickly, over Will’s chest, his bared throat, in the hopes that it would take the edge off, keep every other second from threatening to unman him. First, though, he meant to undress them both. Surely that much he could accomplish.

He shimmied the trousers down Laurence’s hips, not allowing himself the luxury of looking just yet and instead scraping kisses down one leg as he went, savoring the shiver of muscle and the soft noises Laurence made in response. He shucked his own shirt, and began hastily discarding his trousers.

“I would like to undress you again, some day,” Laurence said with an air of epiphany, and Tharkay looked up from struggling with his laces to see him laid out in firelight and shadow, like a votive offering to some god of war. “I enjoyed that, in Russia - acting your valet. I almost regretted when your hands healed enough and I had no excuse any longer, as much as it shames me to admit.”

“Be at peace, then, and know you were not alone in that regret,” Tharkay replied faintly, remembering many difficult mornings and evenings in Laurence’s care, stifling any noise that tried to escape during the ministrations, praying the fever might account for his flush.

“Really,” Laurence said interestedly, and started to smile.

“I - would, Laurence, you must stop talking before I do something entirely rash,” Tharkay warned.

“I am not opposed to that scenario,” Laurence informed him, smile now full-blown, and that was the outside of enough.

“Very well,” he said, and pushed Laurence’s leg until his knee was brushing his chest, and his sex entirely bared. Laurence had flushed a bright red, and was visibly struggling to steady his breath.

“You are damnably beautiful, Will,” Tharkay informed him, and then allowed himself the pleasure of putting his mouth on the most vulnerable parts of him. Laurence made a choked gasp as he mouthed wetly from the tip to the base of his cock, enough to get the whole of it slick before tonguing his way down to darker parts, tender and rich with blood.

“Hold still,” he murmured. “Though you may come to completion for me whenever you like - I do not intend to stop at a single round.”

He returned to kissing Will open, even as he began stroking Will’s length with the hand not occupied bracing his thigh. Laurence continued to make choked, strangled sounds, and all of him was trembling, tensing and untensing like a sail pulled taught in a cyclone’s shifting winds. Tharkay had seldom undertaken any task so rewarding.

“Will you hold yourself open for me, darling?” he said, pulling back again when it became clear he had need of both hands, and then laughed delightedly and roughly when Laurence shuddered all over and came in his hand, head tipped back. “Belay that, after all,” he said, nuzzling at Will’s thigh and pressing kisses there, almost blindingly happy.

“Tenzing,” Laurence only said, sounding dazed, and then when Tharkay had slicked his fingers with some of his seed, using that to further ease the way inside him, repeated Tharkay’s name at greater volume, more strangled and hoarse.

“If there is anything you do not like, pray say so at once,” Tharkay said tightly; he was beginning to feel a desperate, inexorable ache unspooling in his gut, like an attempt to hold back a wave at sea. “There are - many other things we might do, if this does not appeal.”

“I have disliked nothing so far,” Laurence managed. “And if you stop I may - I - oh -” he trailed off, body bowing and words dissolving into a low, shocked sound. Tharkay looked up to see Laurence’s head fall back, his face all slack surprise. It was disastrously arousing, the idea that he was the first to do this, to see this particular expression, to have caused Laurence to experience such a sensation.

“Yes, there is a reason this act has such appeal,” Tharkay told him, and stretches up to kiss Laurence’s panting mouth.

“I thought it just, the intensity of it,” Laurence managed, eyes dark and staring, looking not unlike a very attractive victim of a blow to the head. “It’s so, very intimate, but good god, Tharkay, please, right there, ah -”

“Your wish,” Tharkay managed, and complies, and is treated to the pleasure of watching Laurence come a second time, this longer and more drawn out than the first, and increasingly louder. “Beautiful,” Tharkay gasped, and unable to help himself, pushed passed endurance, spilled himself with a low groan, striping Laurence’s thigh and stomach. Which was a pretty picture, but still a waste, he thought disgruntledly, exhausted and thoroughly spent for the evening.

Laurence was delighted.

“I had begun to feel quite selfish,” Laurence said, staggering to his feet. His hair was in incredible disarray, and his body streaked with drying wine, and Tharkay wanted immediately to pin him back to the settee and lazily lick it off until his member revived; it was already twitching hopefully. “I am glad to learn you enjoyed the experience nearly as much as I did, and frankly I doubt I could have survived further coupling this evening. Besides, we will both regret it if we sleep here. Come, up.”

“You are abominably alert,” Tharkay told him, and let himself be pulled up.

“I’m happy,” Laurence told him, and smiled. “And it is only a last hurrah before I crash. Here.” He made use of pitcher of water, wetting a shirt and perfunctorily wiping Tharkay down, then himself. “Bed?”

It had been a long time since Tharkay slept this closely with someone skin to skin - the last person he’d been this close with, at all, was Laurence, when curled around each other for warmth in the ice between Russia and France, both near hopelessness.

That morning seemed impossibly distant from this moment - it is a marvel they are here at all. Tharkay was not a religious man, but as the dawning sky showed pink at the edges of the window, and Laurence curled around him, tucking Tharkay against him, he felt a distinct reverence.

“Was it a satisfactory wedding night, then?” he asked quietly into the soft darkness, and received a kiss to the nape of his neck.

“Yes, my love.” Drowsy words that went straight to his heart. “Well worth the wait.”

Worth nearly anything, Tharkay thought, and let himself relax at last into sleep.


End file.
